“Took you long enough,” Petra said, her voice somehow managing to sound completely normal, despite the knife digging into her throat. She had long, black hair that hid half of her face from my view.

“No talking!” The armored man holding Petra snarled, pressing the blade even deeper.

I stood stalk still, watching in fear as the blade drew an even larger stream of blood. The blood trailed along the man’s blade, reaching the hilt of the blade.

Petra didn’t make a sound.

“I’m not sure why you’re doing this,” I said. “But we can figure this out. Leave her here, and you can teleport away. I won’t chase you. I just want my sister back.”

The man laughed, somewhat crazily. “Do you think you’re in the position to bargain? Take off all your equipment, and drop your weapons, or your sister loses a finger. Now.”

If the man didn’t have a Mana Shield, I could probably cast cursed lightning fast enough before he could kill Petra.

But he did have a Mana Shield, and full armor.

I had lost the element of surprise, and even if I put all my points into Agility, I wasn’t convinced I could kill the armored man before he killed Petra.

“This little piggy,” Petra said, in a sing-song voice.

“Shut up! I’ve had enough of your mind-games,” the armored man said, digging his knife into Petra’s throat again.

Her blood was starting to drip down to the ground, and I felt a wave of fury rush through me.

Enough of your mind games.

It sounded like this man had been dealing with Petra for a while.

This little piggy.

It was a game we would play as kids, sometimes. Each toe was a piggy. It ended with tickling the other person’s feet.

Petra wasn’t ticklish. It never mattered how hard we tried, or what we used. She would never laugh.

I stared into Petra’s brown eyes, and she stared dead back.

I felt a chill run through my body, watching her, bleeding from the neck, so calm and collected.

And then she winked at me.

Here I was, wishing she would cry out, at least act like she was in pain, so that the blade wouldn’t cut so deeply into her neck.

She was holding back for a reason—for me.

I realized I had been standing stock-still for too long.

“Then let’s get started,” the man in armor said. He removed the knife from Petra’s neck—finally—and moved it towards Petra’s hands.

He spun Petra slightly, so that she was facing the hallway walls, and so that I could clearly see the hands and knife.

“She really loves this finger, you know,” the man said, forcing up Petra’s middle finger on her left hand. “Very proud of it.”

I started lowering my blade to the ground.

I froze, and the man shrugged his armored shoulders at me, and sliced off Petra’s middle finger.

It was surprisingly quiet.

The blade was sharp enough that he didn’t meet much resistance. I heard Petra’s finger fall to the ground, and I could hear blood pouring down as well.

Petra didn’t make a sound. She just tried to rearrange her fingers as best she could to try to staunch the flow.

She turned her head towards me. Her long black hair covered most of her face, but I could still see her intense stare. She bared her teeth. Then she mouthed one word. Wait.

For once, I wished my Perception wasn’t so high. I could see the small shivers that Petra was trying to suppress, and the way sweat beaded on her forehead.

“As far as I can tell, there is only one finger she likes as much as that one,” the man said, prying at Petra’s other middle finger.

Both of Petra’s hands were slick with blood, all the way to her wrist.

The man fumbled for her middle finger, and as he did, Petra twisted her wrists.

Samantha said, quickly.

I saw it as though it was happening in slow-motion.

Petra pushed her wrists against the man’s blade, slicing her own hands off at her wrist in the process.

For a split second, the armored man was frozen in shock.

That was all Petra needed to slip her bleeding wrists out of the man’s shocked grip, and run towards me.

I was almost frozen in shock, too, at the spectacle of so much blood, but I knew better than to waste this opportunity.

I threw both daggers at once with all the force I could muster.

As the man lunged for Petra, both daggers dug into his Mana Shield, the second dagger cracking the shield and bouncing off his armor.

And then I was already upon him, my Vampiric Blade descending towards his neck.

With a single, swift slice, the man died.

I immediately turned towards Petra, who was now leaning against a wall, trying to staunch the flow of blood at both her wrists by pressing her wrists against her shirt.

I rushed over, about to hand her a health potion when I realized that she didn’t have hands.

I uncorked the potion and poured it down her throat. Then I took a second one, repeating the gesture.

“It’s ok,” I said. “You’re safe now.”

Petra gritted her teeth. “Where are the other guards?”

“Two surrendered and I pushed them down into one of these prison cells. One is dead. The other two—I don’t know.”

“How are we going to get out?”

“We can’t trust any towns in this Region. So I was going to capture the town, upgrade it to a city, and then we can teleport to safety.”

“Seems expensive,” Petra said.

I shrugged. “It’s the safest option.”

“Alright,” Petra said. “I want to kill the guards you captured. Hopefully that will be enough to gain me a level.”

I paused. “They did surrender. Once we get out of here, I can find plenty of monsters for you—”

Petra glared at me. “Do you have any idea what they did to me? Which cell are they in?”

I pointed.

“Get the keys,” Petra said.

I went over to the dead man’s body. He had dropped several high-quality pieces of armor, as well as in Interdimensional Pouch, which held, among other things, antidotes to the poison upstairs and keys.

After a bit of fumbling, I opened the door that held the sorcerer and the rogue.

I rushed forward and knocked them unconscious with a quick rap to the backs of their heads, before they could say anything.

The inside of the cell was covered in thick red mist, so I drank one of the antidotes, and poured another one down Petra’s throat.

“Give me one of your daggers,” Petra said, holding her forearms out.

I placed a dagger’s hilt carefully between her forearms, and Petra knelt in front of the closer captive—the sorcerer.

Without a moment of hesitation, she stabbed my blade directly into the man’s neck, ignoring the spurt of blood that reached her arms.

Petra cut a somewhat gruesome picture. Her shirt was already soaked in her own blood, and there was a trail of blood from her healed cut at her neck. Kneeling beside the recently killed guard, I almost had the feeling that I was observing some occult ritual.

Petra smiled at me, and I had to force myself not to take a step back.

She rose from her knees and approached the rogue, knelt, and slit his throat.

I had a brief moment of panic as she did. What if this wasn’t enough?

The panic faded. A shimmering light surrounded her, and I watched her body heal, the skin around her wrists growing at a rapid rate until hands and fingers formed again.

Petra held the knife lightly in her hand, wrapping and unwrapping her fingers around its blade. “Can I keep this?”

“It’s a throwing knife,” I said. “I’m not sure it’s suited for you. You can hold onto it, for now, but it’s still bound to me, so you won’t be able to equip it.”

Petra frowned. “Then I’ll take Jamison’s knife.” She held out her hand, expectantly.

I paused for a second, realizing belatedly that Jamison must have been the armored man that I had killed.

I took the knife out of my inventory and passed it to her, taking my own Bonded Blade back.

“Let’s go,” Petra said, gesturing for me to lead the way out of the cell.

We explored the rest of the building. There was nobody else left in the manor, to my surprise. I thought I could detect a hint of disappointment in Petra’s face, but she hid it well.

The manor’s upstairs had an office with a Mana Shield Ward Scheme that was still active. I broke it easily, ready for any traps, but I was able to easily claim the town as my own.

Before upgrading the town to a city, Petra insisted that we remove all the current inhabitants—it wouldn’t do for the city to be easily recaptured.

Petra insisted on walking with me. (“Are you saying you can kill a Zone Lord but can’t defend me from some weak-ass soldiers?”).

So we left the manor together, but I was surprised to find that the town was completely empty. Even with Mana Sensing, I couldn’t sense a single soul.

It seemed the Armed Forces had decided to completely cut their losses and evacuate the town while they could, before I had successfully claimed the portal.

Outside of the town, I could see hundreds of Porcuspines still attacking the town, draining the Mana Shield around us.

Not wanting to waste more time, I tossed a few Igneal Explosives out, and then cleaned up the rest with my throwing knives.

Once the monsters were cleared away sufficiently, I upgraded the town to a city.

And then, we just had to wait and kill the monsters as the city upgraded itself. Petra had picked up a bow and arrow, and was shooting the Porcuspines with decent aim. She would shoot the wounded Porcuspines—the ones that had already been hit by the explosives—and I quickly adopted a strategy of not killing any Porcuspines, trying to help Petra deal the killing blow.

“So,” Petra said. “I have a lot of questions. Why the hell did you pick Hard-mode?”

I sighed. “Justin asked me the same thing. I wanted to protect you two.”

Petra snickered.

“I know,” I said. “Justin gave me a whole spiel.”

“Alright, well thanks for stepping up and showing you give a shit about your family, for once in your life,” Petra said.

“Come on, are you really doing this right now?” I said. “I was kind of hoping for a more happy family reunion?”

“And I was hoping that my heroic little brother would actually have a plan when he came to save me. Why the hell did you think it was a good idea to just break in to the manor? What did you think was going to happen?”

“It worked out, didn’t it? At least you’re free?”

“Oh, right,” Petra said. “It worked out. Is that what you call me cutting off my own wrists? Do you think I wanted to do that? Or, maybe, that was your plan all along?”

I took a breath, trying to calm my frustration. We’re finally together. Why are we already fighting. “Petra, I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through a lot.”

Petra sighed. “Let’s just get back to Justin. We can talk more then.”

When I finally upgraded the town to a city, I decided to call it “Freedom City,” in honor of Petra’s newfound freedom.

Petra snorted. “How wholesome. Are you sure you don’t want to call it Family City? How about, “Beloved Sister City?”

We were able to leave Freedom City without any serious snags, quickly finding our way to Reed City to finally reunite our family.